At Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Expo 2011 (or HIMSS 2011), HP and its partners showed off a series of products that aim to change the practice and delivery of healthcare.

One of those products is the HP Mobile Workstation 8740 enhanced with Canvys DICOM® 3.14 calibration and using MedWeb’s mobile PACS suite.

As a user of the EliteBook 8740 Mobile Workstation, I was intrigued, and wanted to learn more.

 

In a discussion last week with David Sorensen, Director of Operations for Canvys, I learned a few things.

The new DICOM 3.14-compliant solution came about as a result of a 10-year search for a mobile solution capable of displaying radiographic images on par with what CRTs used to deliver. In that timeframe, no mobile display panel had been able to pass muster until the DreamColor panel used in the 8740. “For ten plus years, I have been looking for a mobile display good enough for diagnostic-quality images, traveling to Asia and talking with various manufacturers. When HP came out with the HP EliteBook Mobile Workstation, I was excited that I had found what we needed.” said David Sorensen

The utility of this solution cannot be understated. For the first time, doctors can equip COWs (computers-on-wheels) with not just the firepower, but the visual prowess needed to display radiographic images instantly, and even at patients’ bedsides. It also allows medical professionals equipped with this solution to be able to receive photos at remote locations, examine them, and make decisions that could save lives, improving the delivery of healthcare to patients.

In guiding their corporate decision, David found the HP EliteBook 8740w to be the perfect product for this solution, incorporating a holistic unity of display panel, CPU vim, and GPU verve. No other solution married these components, with most of them not having a good enough display panel. In fact, said David, “It is unacceptable in medical imaging, to watch subtle grey levels change as you move your head with respect to the display, which is what can happen with some display technology with limited viewing angles.”

So what did Canvys do?

“Canvys took the exceptionally powerful and rugged HP EliteBook Mobile Workstation, developed a calibration solution, and created the world’s first DICOM 3.14 compliant mobile computing platform. This has never been seen before.” said David Sorensen.

Continuing, he said, “Canvys calibration software coupled with the HP EliteBook Mobile Workstation enables mobile, DICOM-compliant viewing not just for radiologists, but for clinicians such as orthopedic doctors, neurologists, cardiologists, and oncologists.”

Already, Canvys has extended the product beyond basic viewing to include various other medical disciplines.

Part of NASDAQ-listed Richardson Electronics, Canvys is just getting started. The affordable line of DICOM-compliant products are already being well received, and I foresee more use cases open up.

Next up, I hope to talk to someone at Medweb, Canvys’ partner, and producer of the software suite that powers this mobile PACS solution

HP’s collaboration with Canvys is explained as such:

HP has partnered with Canvys, which announced the world’s first notebook to meet the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM®) 3.14 calibration standard, providing healthcare professionals unprecedented remote access to a high-quality PACS solution. The DICOM 3.14 standard specifies how digital image data can be moved from system to system, as well as how pixel values should be interpreted or displayed. The HP EliteBook 8540w and HP EliteBook 8740w mobile workstations feature the HP DreamColor LED-backlit display technology for enhanced brightness, resolution, color depth and viewing angle. The displays on the mobile workstations have 30-bit color accuracy, which provides more than 1 billion color possibilities and offers physicians and healthcare specialists diagnostic-quality images remotely. HP and Canvys also now integrate with Medweb to provide a complete virtual PACS solution that ensures the high-quality images are available on cloud-hosting for healthcare professionals who need to access them. Medweb’s solution offers a cloud-hosted imaging and data repository that is designed for fast, substantial storage for physicians and specialists. Using a downloadable web interface, documents and images can be accessible under the requirements of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Canvys is a a global value-added integrator and manufacturer which specializes in creating comprehensive visual technology solutions for healthcare, OEMs, and digital signage applications. Additionally, Canvys provides complete post-sale service and support, including installation, maintenance, troubleshooting, calibration and conformance. It uses a collaborative approach that allows it to evaluate each customer’s unique needs and craft the right solution—whether custom-engineered, value-added outsourced, or modified off-the-shelf.

Medweb provides a scalable, patented web-based platform, fully customizable to meet the needs of clinical specialists and administrators. The company’s core products and solutions include RIS/PACS, teleradiology, general telemedicine and specialty applications for teledermatology, teleophthalmology and stroke evaluation.